The Light Of the Oncoming Train
by TaiDollWave
Summary: Takes place during No Man's Land. Stuck in Gotham with time and resources running out, Andromeda will do whatever it takes to stay alive. Including making a deal with the Penguin.
1. Chapter 1

I didn't intend to stay. As soon as it became clear to me after the Cataclysm that things in Gotham were going from bad to worse, I was making plans. Most of my friends, people that had lived with me here in Gotham since we were children, had left. They had packed up with their families as soon as the sickness came and had set up in Metropolis, Bludhaven, anywhere they could find.

My own mother had left Gotham years ago, leaving me with my aunt who was only a few years older than me, barely out of college. She said she couldn't take this city anymore. She likened it to a cancer, eating her from the inside out.

When the sickness came, she had called me.

"You and Lanie need to get out of Gotham." I could hear her flicking on her cigarette lighter. "Come to Bludhaven. I have an apartment, and it'll do just fine for now. We can get a house later, just the three of us."

"I don't feel like it's any better there than here, Mom." I was at the store, stock piling cans of food so that Lanie and I could hole up in the tiny house we shared, ancient and strong. It was a brownstone, covered in ivy that my grandmother had planted before either of her daughters were born. Neither of us

wanted to be sick.

"Then we'll go to Metropolis. All you have to do is get OUT!" she was frantic. "Baby, things are not going to get better there. Do you not see that?"

"I can't leave yet, Mom. Lanie's work at the hospital... My work at the shelter. They need us here more than ever." I switched my cell phone to my other year and cleared out almost the whole shelf of tomato soup, a special favorite of ours.

She was silent, and I could hear her puffing on the cigarette.

"I can't change your mind."

"No,"

"I'll tell you this one more time. You and Lanie need to get out." she sighed. "You're a grown woman." she hung up without another word. I ignored her warnings, as I so often did. What did she know, she wasn't here.

But the night of the Cataclysm, when Lanie and I lay together on the floor, hearing the screams, the breaking glass, smelling the heat from the fires around us, I began to suspect that there might have been something to what she told me. I remember shivering violently, and Lanie reaching to take my hand.

"Andromeda," she whispered, and I could hear her through the raging violence around me and inside of me. "Andromeda, I promise that I will never let anything happen to you. Haven't I kept you safe all these years? Don't worry." she squeezed my hand.

"We'll get through it."

At the time I believed her. There was no reason not to. But then the reports came in, and suddenly we realized that no one was going to save Gotham. They were blowing up the bridges. If we didn't leave now, we never could.

But my mother's phone seemed to be off, and none of my friends could find a place for the both of us. I wouldn't leave Lanie alone. I couldn't. She encouraged me, begged me to go without her. But I wouldn't, I couldn't. With you or not at all, I told her, as we slept together on the floor of our living room, terrified to be separated for even a moment.

The night they blew up the bridges, we lay together in our dark, still house. We had boarded up the windows, conserved our candles and the kerosene lamps that Grandma had bought so many years ago in case of emergency. Lanie said she had laughed at her mother then but now... Well...

The hospital closed. The shelter closed. Our work was in the streets now, Lanie said dryly. But neither of us could quite bring ourselves to be that brave. We knew the risks of trying that. We knew the things that could happen to us.

"Is this forever?" I asked her one night, under our mountains of blankets.

"No. Eventually the world will come to its senses, and then they'll come and build the bridges." she pushed my hair out of my eyes.

"Will we be alive then?" she froze and looked at me. It was getting colder. Food supplies were running low. I can't even begin to explain the things I would do just to be able to eat an apple, crisp and bright and sweet.

"I sure hope so." Lanie whispered, pulling the blankets up around me. "I'm going to do my best. I promise."

Somehow it didn't make me feel better.


	2. Chapter 2

I should have expected it to happen. Things had gone too well for the two of us, all things considered. I should have known that something was going to go bad. Lanie started with a small cough. She said it was just a tickle in her throat, but in days she was laying on the pallet on the living room floor, propped up with pillows, wheezing. Her cheeks burned with fever, but she was shivering violently.

"I'll be fine in another day or so, Andromeda. Don't worry." she smiled wanly. We both knew it wasn't true. I leaned against the door, watching her, thinking. I had ventured out a time or two, running into a few people that I had known in the days before this was No Man's Land. In the days when there used to be buses, and you could walk down for a candy bar at the store.

One of them had told me that Penguin was the man to see if you wanted something.

"He's the only one taking money and jewelry and art as trade." Alex said, a boy who'd sat behind me in math and cheated off my papers. Before he'd had gelled hair and those fancy t-shirts that cost a million dollars. Now he looked gaunt and restless.

"Where is he?" I'd asked, reaching into my pocket to find two stray mints, sharing one with Alex. Alex just looked at it before smiling and putting it in his mouth. I knew from the way his hands shook it

wasn't candy he was jonesing for.

"You don't want to go there, Romi, if you need something I'll find it for you."

"Suppose I can't find you?" I'd read his death in his eyes, in the weakness in his grip when he'd hugged me hello. I knew he wasn't long for this world.

He told me directions, pointing and waving his hands, shaping the air as he told his story. I wanted to begin to sob, standing there on the street corner, shivering in my thin hoodie. If only I could have gotten him somewhere. If only there was enough food in my house for three people.

"But you won't have to worry about it." Alex told me with a cheeky grin. "I'll get you anything you and your aunt need."

"Of course," I murmured, handing him my other mint. He took it gently from my palm, pressing it on his tongue like Communion.

"Find me, okay? I'll be hanging around here." he waved with a hand behind him. We hugged goodbye and I retreated to the house.

But that was thirty days into No Man's Land. We were ninety days in, and though I had gone to look for him, he was nowhere to be found. I was quite sure I knew where Alex had ended up, and it wasn't anywhere good.

I remembered, though. I remembered where he told me Penguin was. And if anyone had medicine for Lanie, it would be him. I made up my mind to go.

"There is no way I am letting you-!" Lanie began, ending in a coughing fit. I gave her a drink of water warmed on the camp stove.

"If you die then there's no one to take care of me. Lanie, at this point, I don't feel like we have a choice." I knelt next to her. She looked at me and nodded. "If it were me..."

"I would have gotten you the hell out of Gotham a long time ago." she laid back on the pallet. "You'll go first thing in the morning." she considered me for a moment. "Penguin likes girls to look fancy."

"I know," I said slowly. I touched my hair. It was, in short, a mess. I hadn't had shampoo to wash it, and no conditioner. I would have killed for electricity to straight it.

"Go get your hair wet and come here. And bring the scrap material box." I obeyed, coming back shivering from the freezing water. I sat next to her as she propped herself up and began to comb my wet hair and then wind it into a tight curl, wrapping a scrap of cloth around it.

"God, I miss curling irons." I sighed.

"This is how your grandma did her hair." Lanie said thoughtfully. "Even after curling irons. She said it worked better." we were silent for a moment.

"Do you think things would be different, if she hadn't died? Do you think Mom would have

stayed with me?"

"Oh, Andromeda." Lanie sighed. She never did call me Romi like everyone else. "If my mother had lived, we wouldn't have stayed in Gotham after you were born." she finished my hair. "Now, go wash up good and lay down."

Since her illness, I had to sleep away from her, in the other side of the room. I slept with my back to the wall, facing her. I never could bring myself to turn away from her, even in sleep. She was sleep before me. I watched her, listening to the rattle in her breath.

"I'll fix it, Lanie." I murmured. "I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, I put on my last nice dress. I remembered the day my best friend and I took the train into Metropolis to shop. We had convinced ourselves that the shopping in Gotham left a lot to be desired. We sat on the train in our walking shoes, feeling so grown up as we huddled together in our seat.

We scoured the mall, going into what must have been every store, and some at least twice. At the last store, I'd found The Dress. It was sitting on a mannequin, underneath a light in the middle of the store.

"Oh, you need that," my friend had noticed me staring. She got an associate to take it off the dummy for us. In the dressing room, staring in the mirror, my hair up in a messy pony tail, wearing plastic Hello Kitty jewelry, I'd felt gorgeous.

And now I was walking through the rubble of my home town, picking my way carefully over the cracks in the sidewalk, wobbling slightly in my heels. I shivered, feeling the wind cutting through the thin silk of the dress. Black, with a flared skirt, cap sleeves, and the lowest neckline I had ever dared to wear.

The walk seemed endless. The smell of spray paint was heavy in the air. Was I in LoBoys or Demonz territory? Did it matter anymore? Was there anyone who could save us? They said they were going to protect us. From what? From each other? From ourselves? I knew now that there was no one to protect us from ourselves. The ending of Gotham had been the beginning of the true nature of humanity. I saw the hand of a corpse sticking out from behind a pile of bricks, I wanted to both laugh and cry. Instead, I just muffled my scream.

I sighed and stepped over a pile of trash, telling myself that it was all just papers and random garbage. There was no possible way there was a body underneath there. There were no more bodies. They had all been picked up. I knew it wasn't true, but it was something I had to tell myself in order to be able to get there.

I pulled my coat, a large wool one of Lanie's that I had managed to brush most of the lint off tighter around me. Winter would never end, would it? I'd been unable to find tights without holes in them, and of course I couldn't just go down to the store to buy some. Instead I was wearing the thinnest panty hose on the face of the Earth. My aunt had sighed as she took them out of their package.

"Try not to freeze to death."

There were no gloves to speak of, nor was there a hat. At least it wasn't windy to blow my curls around. And at least my hair had come out in something like Shirley Temple curls. I knew the way I looked in that dress with that hair.

Hopefully, the Penguin would think I looked the same.

Finally, after what felt like hours, but what I knew wasn't, I arrived at the old warehouse. I stood outside of it for a few minutes before knocking on the cracked wooden employee entrance. The door pulled open, and a burly man with a unibrow poked his head out.

"Yeah?"

"I need to speak to Mr. Cobblepot?" I squeaked. The door shut and I stood outside for a moment, uncertain of what I should do. Just as I was getting ready to turn and walk home, defeated, the door opened again.

"Penguin said he'd see you." I stepped into the warehouse, my eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. There were pallets of food, blankets, water, toilet paper (toilet paper... we missed that), just about anything I could think of.

I was tempted to reach out and fill my pockets then make a run for it. But not only could I not find the medicine, I thought that it might ruin my chances at getting anything I needed from him. And I couldn't run in heels, not with the streets being trashed, not with the fact that there wasn't even any traffic for me to try and dart through.

The running part might have been what really stopped me.

I followed the thug up a creaky flight of wooden steps, careful to keep my dress from getting snagged. Glancing down, I could see the rest of the thugs milling around, talking and lifting and moving. I swallowed as I stepped into the office.


	4. Chapter 4

"Well, well, well." he lifted one grotesque, malformed hand to grasp the cigarette holder in his mouth. I found myself marvelling at the state of his clothes. A pressed tuxedo, a top hat placed at a jaunty angle on his head. None of this was torn or stained.

How did he manage to stay so clean? Where did he find the water to wash his clothes? How was this possible. I willed myself not to fidget with the hem of my skirt, a nervous habit of mine. I didn't want to come before him wrinkled.

"Good afternoon, sir," I lifted my chin, aware of the way my curls bounced.

"And what brings such a well dressed young lady before me today?" he adjusted his monocle. I squirmed in my shoes, feeling the ache in my arches. Penguin clapped himself on his tall forehead.

"Where are my manners? Meat Hook, bring the lady a seat." the thug who had been standing by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, jumped. He nodded and scurried out, carrying in a metal folding chair.

"You must forgive the accommodations, Miss. Times are tough, of course. Might I ask the name of the pretty lady who came to see me?"

"Andromeda," I sat down delicately, pressing my knees together as I did so. He looked at me for a moment. "Andromeda Parker." I hadn't wanted to give him my last name, afraid that even with the city in ruins he would be able to dig up some information on me.

"Andromeda," my name rolled off his tongue. It sent shivers down my spine, the way he sounded so oily. "What a very pretty name. Do you know the myth of Andromeda?"

"Yes" I nodded, careful not to say 'yeah'. I wanted to be on my best behavior, wanted to show him how well bred I was. Though I didn't make it a habit to know much of anything about these criminals, I knew that he liked to fancy himself a society man.

"And do you feel like you're tied to a rock right now?"

"You could say that," I smiled in spite of myself. He nodded and took another puff off his cigarette, carefully turning his head so he didn't blow the smoke in my face. This is only remarkable

when you realize that he didn't have much of a neck to turn his head.

"What is your rock?" he questioned. Lanie wasn't a rock. I wouldn't call her that. But this illness was. The fact that we were stuck in this city. That was a rock. I cleared my throat.

"I'm in a bit of a rough spot, sir." I sighed. "My aunt and I remained here in after Black Monday. Supplies are low, and unfortunately, my aunt is quite ill. She needs antibiotics. If I don't get them to her soon, I'm afraid she'll die."

"And?" he prompted.

"And I hear that you're the man to come and see if you need something in No Man's Land." I lifted my chin to look him straight in the eye.

"Why didn't you take her to the MASH unit?"

"She's too ill to be moved. And she's not ill enough for me to feel like I should take free medicine." I swallowed. There was a pause in the room.

"So you come with payment. Not a beggar. I admire that." he looked pleased. "Show me the trinket you've bought to entice my tastes." he held out his flipper hand.

I bit my lower lip and pulled the ring off my finger. It was a gold band with three diamonds. It had been my grandmother's engagement ring. I had to go to Lanie's room to fetch it. I knew she was saving it for me, in the secret bottom of her jewelry box, for the man who wanted to propose to me. Whoever that might be.

But right now, Cinderella dreams of weddings and diamond rings seemed so far away and foolish. And I was sure that Grandma would want Lanie to stay alive rather than me have a piece of bling to wear. I reluctantly placed it on his palm.

"It was my grandmother's." I blurted. He hadn't asked, but I couldn't help it. "My aunt was saving it for when I get married."

"Oh, I think it's worth a course of antibiotic." he nodded to Meat Hook, who left and returned with several bottles. "Please, take your pick, Miss Andromeda."

I selected a course of amoxicillian. I placed it in my coat pocket and rose, extending my hand across the table. Penguin took it, but instead of the gentle handshake I was expecting, he gripped it tightly, clasping it between his hands.

"Will you come back and see me?"

"See you?" I repeated. "See you?"

"It gets—lonesome, sitting here with no one of any sort of intellect to talk to. I would like it very much if you would come and see me again and talk with me Keep the cobwebs out of my brain."

"I don't know..." I trailed off.

"I have fresh fruit and vegetables I have just about anything you could ask for, Miss Andromeda. I can make it worth your time."

"I have nothing left to trade you. My grandmother's ring was the only thing we had of value."

"Oh, you can trade your company. Come and speak to me, Andromeda, and I will make sure that you and your aunt want nothing." he beamed at me. It was the strangest smile I had ever seen.

My first thought was to say no. I wanted nothing more to do with him. I wanted to pretend that we had never met. And yet...

"Yes," I whispered. "I'll come back."

"Good! Meat Hook! See the lady out."


	5. Chapter 5

"Lanie! Lanie," I burst into the door after having almost run through the destruction of Gotham City. She lifted her head up and smiled.

"I was so afraid that you wouldn't come home. I was afraid you'd either be killed or you would have found a way off this island."

"If I ever did, I wouldn't leave you." I whispered. "I'd never leave you here, Lanie." I reached into my pocket and produced the plastic bottle.

"Amoxicillian!" I crowed. I doled her out a dose. "Take it. And here," I produced a bottle of orange juice from my pocket. Meat Hook, who was much kinder than his name, had made me up a bag of groceries.

"What did you do to get these things?" she marveled.

"I traded Grandma's ring."

"Andromeda! That was for when you-." she began.

"It doesn't matter if we don't make it through this alive, does it?" I said. It hung heavy between us in the air. Both of us knew how close we were to death. The idea of our mortality frightened the both of us.

"I suppose that's true." she watched me hang up my coat and begin to gather my clothes to change out of my dress. I felt damp and chilled.

"What was he like?"

"Lanie, I was afraid of him." I confessed as I gingerly took off my stockings. I pulled on a pair of sweat pants and whipped off the dress, quickly pulling on my tank top, t-shirt, and hoodie. I wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower.

"Did he say anything that you didn't like?"

"No, he was very polite." I confessed. "It's just that the way he looks... Lanie, he really does look like a penguin." I sank down onto my pallet. I shivered, though I knew it wasn't from the cold hanging

in the air.

"Well, he gave us what we needed. I suppose that's over with." she looked slightly relieved. My awkward silence made her stare. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I told him I'd go back and see him again." she stared at me.

"Are you insane?" she demanded. "He could kill you! He's done it before, and I'm sure he'd have no problem doing it again."

"He said he'll trade me. My company for his items." I lifted my chin. "We have to live. As soon as we have the chance, I want to leave Gotham. And there's no way that we can do that without food and water and toilet paper."

"I thought we'd been doing okay without the toilet paper."

"Well, we're running out of magazines." I said dryly. Lanie just sighed and looked at me.

"We'll be okay even if you never go back and see him again. I'm getting better. And then I'll put my feelers out and see if there's anyone who can help us."

"No, there's not. It's Penguin or dying." I looked her straight in the eye. "I don't choose death, Elaine."

"I didn't expect you to. I thought that you could at least wait until I can sit up and then you can let me look around and see what I can find."

"There's nothing to FIND, Elaine!" I shouted. "Please! Just let me do this the best way that I can. And since that's being with the Penguin for a few hours every other day... I'm not opposed to that. I'll suck it up and deal with it."

"And what if he kills you?" she shouted hoarsely.

"Then I'll die knowing I've done the best that I can." I stood up and headed for the kitchen. "Now, do you want some fucking soup, or not?" silence came from my aunt's pallet. I opened up a can of soup to put on the camp stove and retrieved two cleanish bowls and spoons.

"Do you think that I haven't done the best that I can, Andromeda?" she asked when I returned. I stared at her, holding the lukewarm soup in my hands.

"I never said that."

"I don't think you had to." she looked both heartbroken and outraged. It was a beautiful look on her. "You said you didn't want to leave."

"I didn't want to. Neither of us did. But Lanie, neither of us had any way of knowing exactly how bad things would get here. I walked over dead men on the way to Penguin's. I had to sit in the room

with that man and hand over Grandma's ring."

"I never asked you to."

"Well, YOU didn't have to!" I screamed. She gasped. "You didn't have to. What do you think I'd

do if you died? What do you think would happen to me? Don't you know that I'd be right behind you?"

"Maybe that would have been better." she whispered. I only shook my head in disgust as I picked up my spoon to eat.

_AN: Thanks to foxfire on the marsh for my review! I'm not really surprised I don't have that many reviews, to be honest. I thought most people were waiting for it to be over. I don't feel like Andromeda is a Mary Sue. I, for one, wouldn't have gone to the see the Penguin. Although I personally have always felt sorry for him, I don't know that rubbing elbows with insane people (criminally insane people) is a good idea. _


	6. Chapter 6

I began to scour the house for something to wear. I couldn't stand before Penguin in my old raggedy clothes. I found a box of my grandmother's old things and brought them to Lainey with our needs and thread.

"Do you think we can save the scraps? I want to make a quilt when we get out of here." I asked her. She nodded silently as she pinned up the skirt, took in the waist. She spent the rest of the day snipping and stitching. I knew her careful fingers would make sure that the stitches didn't fall out, didn't make me look some kind of orphan.

"Aren't you afraid, Andromeda? Aren't you terrified of him?" her fever had finally broken, but she still had a rasp to her voice.

"I am terrified. But I'm willing to do whatever it takes for you." I shrugged and put on my grandmother's parka. I pulled the door open and almost gasped as I saw Meat Hook standing there, his arms folded across his chest.

"Wh—what are you doing here?" I stuttered.

"Penguin said he wanted me to take you to him personally. So that nothin' could happen to you. It's dangerous out here, ya know." he glared down his nose at me. I nodded once and finished pulling on my high heeled shoes.  
"Besides, I know a quicker way."

I followed him through the rubble of my hometown, dodging the rocks and the people that were watching us walk. I was afraid for a moment that wherever he was taking me wasn't where he promised. I thought that maybe he was taking me down to the river to throw me off, to look for those mines they had placed underneath.

But no, he simply led me down a quicker, though more populated, path to Penguin's warehouse and opened the door for me. I stopped to look at him, swallowing back my fear.

"He's waiting for ya."

"I know." I mumbled, stepping inside and up the stairs to his office.

Today, he had a chair waiting for me, along with a small table draped with a checked tablecloth and two china plates. Penguin bolted up from his chair and waddled over to me.

"My dear Andromeda! You did come. I sent Meat Hook as an escort, I'm sorry I couldn't go on my own. But you know things around here aren't exactly safe for a man of my standing." he puffed himself up. "And you're such a pretty girl I didn't want you to walk alone." he was chattering now, pulling out the chair for me. I sat myself down and accepted the napkin to spread in my lap.

"Most people call me Romi." I said softly.

"Nonsense! I will not shorted such a lovely name. Romi indeed." he scoffed and put a tea pot, with cream and sugar on the table. "Pour yourself a drink, my dear. I have another matter to attend to, and I will be back in just a moment." he scurried off.

I stared at the table and wondered if he had put this all out for me. Nah, he couldn't have. Seems like a big production just for someone who is going to sit and talk with you for an hour or two. I carefully poured my cup and doctored it up with sugar, glad that no one was there to ask me if I really needed that much.

Penguin was taking a long time to come back. I looked at my cooling tea and shrugged, pouring into the second cup and pouring in a splash of cream and a spoon of sugar. I stirred and set it carefully on the saucer and sat back.

"Sorry, I was-." he bustled in and then stopped abruptly. "Did you make my tea?"

"Wasn't I supposed to?" I looked up, scared. "I'm sorry, Mr. Cobblepot, I thought since you were taking so long I'd pour it before it got too cold to melt the sugar. Maybe you don't like sugar. I apologize."

"No, Andromeda, it's fine!" he said quickly. "Don't be alarmed. I just haven't had anyone pour for me in a very long time." he sank into his seat and presented me with a plate of eclairs and scones. "I didn't know which you liked, so I tried to find a little of everything. Of course, if I had cookies we'd be better off."

"Thank you!" I beamed. "I've been dying for something sweet."

"I thought you might." he watched me put one on my plate and sipped his tea. "Now me, I can't eat things like that anymore. But if you're able to, then I'm happy enough."

"May I take one home to my aunt?"

"Of course," he waved his hand. "How is she doing?"

"Much better, thank you." I let the silence fall over us for a minute. What was I supposed to say to him? How do you talk to a villain? Do you has what new things they have plotted to destroy your city? I also couldn't ask him where he got his supplies, or if he knew a way out.

"How are you?" I finally asked stiffly. "Is everything going well with your business?"

"Very well, thank you!" he seemed pleased that I had asked. I smiled weakly and finished my eclair. "I'm so pleased that you've taken an interest." Well no, I hadn't. But then, I couldn't very well be rude to the man who had essentially saved my life. He began to spout off something about territories that I didn't listen to, smiling and nodding.

"Oh no!" I glanced out the window. "It's getting dark, I have to go, my aunt is waiting for me." Penguin jumped and looked dismayed.

"Yes of course. Mustn't keep her waiting." he stood to see me out, calling for Meat Hook, who was carrying another sack of groceries and a box I suspected had our baked goods in them. I gave him a smile as I pulled my coat on.

"Thank you, I had a beautiful time."

"Will you come back soon?" he looked near begging.

"I said I would, didn't I?" I wrinkled my nose playfully. "Don't worry, Mr. Cobblepot. I'll come back and see you!"

He chuckled as I left, Meat Hook carrying my bag of things. He handed them to me outside my door

and paused.

"Mr. Cobblepot asked that I sorta keep watch around here." he looked embarrassed.

"He did?"

"Yeah. Make sure you were safe and stuff."

"He just wants to make sure I keep coming back." Meat Hook looked uncomfortable and shrugged. "Well!" I walked into my house and closed the door. Lainey looked up from her book.

"How was it?"

"He's so LONELY and PATHETIC." I seethed. "He has someone watching us now, you know! A thug to secure the perimeter so I have to keep going back to see him like I promised. I don't like being treated like a child."

"Don't sulk, sweetheart." she sat up on her pallet and patted her hair. "You are getting something out of it, after all."

"I know," I said through clenched teeth. "I know. This is just hard, Lainey. This is really hard!" I turned to her.

"I know." she looked at me sadly. "And I would give just about anything for you not to have to be here." she laid back. "But it won't be forever, Andromeda. I'll find a way out of this. I promise."


End file.
